Count Luna | Alexander Lernet-Holenia | Penguin

Count Luna published by Penguin, is the English translation of Der Graf Luna, originally written in German.

Although I read the English translation, I wasn't quite sure if I understood the book as it was meant to be.  Although the story was set during the Nazi era, for some reason, it kept feeling for me like it was set much much earlier, probably because of the hereditary titles that quite a number of characters in the book had.

As the title of the book, Count Luna himself barely appears in the book, yet he looms large and menacing in the conscious of Alexander Jessiersky who, through his cannot-be-bothered-much attitude, inadvertably had Count Luna sent to a concentration camp.

The ending of the book was most confusing for me, and I wasn't able to exactly ascertain when Alexander Jessiersky ceased to be alive.

 

A Grain of Wheat | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o | Penguin

以前、ンギギ・ワ・ティオンゴの『A River Between』を読んだことがあって、今は『A Grain of Wheat』を読もうとしています。 

『The River Between』のように、『A Grain of Wheat』もMau Mau Uprisingを描いています。ただ、当時も今も正直言って、Mau Mau Uprisingやケニアのイギリス植民地支配についてはあまり詳しくありません。

'A Grain of Wheat'は緊張感に満ちていて、イギリス植民地支配の衰退期に人々の希望や願望がどのように変わったか、そしてそれが人々にどう影響したかが描かれています。

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背影 | 朱自清 | 江西科学技术出版社

朱自清的《背影》要说难读懂其实也没许多深奥的词儿，要说易理解其实若不理解朱自清的时代背景也挺难理解的。江西科社出版的这本绘本，虽说或许受众是小孩，但对汉语是外语的大人是个挺不错的《背影》入门。至少，绘本把朱自清的文字形象化了。

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The Opium War | Julia Lovell | Picador

In a war between two countries, usually it is the victorious countries' versions of the war that gets promulgated.

For the two wars fought during the later days of the Manchurian empire, it is however the Chinese narrative that had become dominant with the emphasis on the Opium Wars being the start of the hundred years of humiliation for the Chinese.  And the Manchurian emperor who ruled during the first Opium War is often described in Chinese as 昏庸的道光皇帝 (the inept Emperor Daoguang).

Julia Lovell's The Opium War however, does not completely pin the blame of the Manchurian losses solely on the Manchurian Emperor, instead recognizing that the Emperor might mostly have been fed half-truths or even complete lies by his subjects.  This actually makes the Chinese saying 山高皇帝远 (the mountains are high and the emperor far away) a lot of sense.  If the Manchurian Emperor himself was unable to know the truth of something happening in his own empire, perhaps Queen Victoria experienced the same, with London being so much further away from Canton compared to Peking.

In all fairness, Emperor Daoguang might have been a flawed emperor, yet to not recognize the roles that the English and Chinese traders and Manchurian officials played in the trade deficit fiasco that eventually morphed into a war in which one empire did not even realise was incoming would make the two Opium Wars a very expensive missed lesson.

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Fälle für den Kommissar | Hertbert Reinecker | Easy Readers

Fälle für den Kommissar, geschrieben von Hertbert Reinecker und veröffentlicht vom Verlag Easy Readers, enthält zwei kurze Kriminalgeschichten.

In der ersten Geschichte stirbt ein Mann plötzlich in einem Taxi, während in der zweiten Geschichte eine Frau ermordet wird.

Anfangs fand ich die beiden Geschichten schwer verständlich und musste sie ein zweites Mal lesen.

Ich denke, ich habe es geschafft, die meisten der beiden Geschichten zu verstehen, und fand es interessant, wie der Kommissar die Fälle gelöst hat

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